This book is a true story about partisan life. It contains personal experience, reflections on what has been experienced and accomplished. By profession, I am a career officer of the Soviet Army, I went through military school from a Red Army soldier and cadet to a senior officer, fulfilling the duties of both a combat commander and a political leader in the army. The experience of combat and political work was of great service in the partisan war, in which I was an active participant for three years. I had to start my activities in the partisan movement as an ordinary fighter, then I was a formation commander and, finally, after Timofey Amvrosievich Strokach left for another job, I served as chief of staff of the Ukrainian partisan movement. I fought in the Bryansk forests, in Belarus, in Ukraine, in Moldova, in Czechoslovakia. The book tells about the first year of the war - from mid-August 1941 to August 1942.